“Why are you here who have not yet died?” asked the Sun.
“We have done nothing but follow you all our lives,” replied the brothers.
“Only the dead come here,” the Sun insisted. “You will have to go back.”
He sent them each home on the wings of a buzzard, and thus returned to their amazed people four feeble old men, who had been where no mortal ever went before. When they had told all their strange story, they lay down and died, and so returned to the glories of heaven, which they alone of all men had seen before their time.
THE HUNTER WHO BECAME A DEER
A hunter who had traveled all day without finding any game shot a doe near sunset, and as he was very tired, he lay down near the body and went to sleep.
In the morning, when he awoke, he perceived the doe looking at him lovingly out of large, soft eyes. As he returned her gaze, she astonished him yet more by speaking.
“Will you come home with me?” she pleaded.
The young man hesitated, but there was something strangely appealing about this beautiful woman, as she now seemed to him to become. Almost without knowing what he did, he arose and followed her.
By and by, they came to a great cave under the mountain, where it seemed that all the Deer lived with their chief, an immense buck with powerful antlers. The hunter was hospitably received; but all along the sides of the cave he noticed piles of deer hides, with hoofs and horns. This puzzled him not a little; nevertheless he ate with them, lay down among them, and presently slept.